Ted beats Spiderman with big box office haul

Ted’s strong pre-release last week put the foul-mouthed teddy bear in good stead for its official first weekend at the box office.

The debut feature film by Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, distributed by Universal, posted $8.747m at the box office.

The impressive haul was across 365 screens making for a huge screen average of $23,965.

After last week’s pre-release takings of $4.383m across an unprecedented 243 screens, the film now stands at $13.134m, according to the Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia.

David Collins, sales director for Universal last week told Encore: “The numbers exceeded our wildest expectations. These numbers suggest it might be bigger than we expect.” Last week’s screen average was $18,000.

The film beat out blockbuster The Amazing Spider-Man in its first weekend. The rebooted Spidey, distributed by Sony Pictures took $5.453m across 581 screens for a $9,387 average.

Also opening this weekend was the behind the scenes film of singer Katy Perry. Katy Perry: Part of Me, distributed Paramount took $700,000 across 252 screens for a $2,778 average. The film placed sixth overall on the weekend box office charts.

Opening in limited release Bol Bachchan, distributed by Fox, took $163,000 across 22 screens for a $7,383 average.

A Happy Event, distributed by Umbrella Entertainment opened across eight screens taking $5,116 for a quiet $640 screen average.